The Americans

Western Wind

34 Western Wind Enough, wind, enough. You tire me with the miles you’ve covered, with your face whiskering my sill. I’m trying to sleep. You’ve hauled me enough, you’ve run before me luffing and coursing about. Disking, kiting up, stroking my front hedge. I’m hard alee and creaking inside you. In irons. Under clouds. Stop leading me to believe the box that birthed you was beautiful. At night I breathe the lark’s dark. In the hangar air of an office building, I swear I’d be happier without you. When I drag bins to the curb or jog this whole neighborhood on a leash, you’re always raising the hair on my arms and making the older trees bend over me— those great afflicted trees. You think I don’t have desires like Coleridge in his bower or Vincent Millay stewing in her claw-foot tub? I want to believe in your paws, your raining sleeves. But I’m not just some grass you’ve touched. I’m a baritone who might have been happy had I learned how to sing.  ...